An argument against functionalism

Australasian Journal of Philosophy 77 (3):320-324 (1999)
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Abstract

Functionalists define a given mental state as a state that is apt to be the cause of specific effects and the effect of specific causes. Two tokens of the same belief, however, often cause and are caused by very different events: what makes them beliefs of the same type? Several answers, including the one relying on the identity of actual plus counterfactual causal relations, are considered and rejected. Functionalists did not notice that they have to specify how a state which is to be identified as mental is to be individuated, but, given their theory, this cannot be done

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Author's Profile

Hanoch Ben-Yami
Central European University

Citations of this work

In defence of functionalism.Jing Zhu - 2006 - Philosophia 34 (1):95-99.

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References found in this work

Mad pain and Martian pain.David Lewis - 1980 - In Ned Block (ed.), Readings in the Philosophy of Psychology. Harvard University Press. pp. 216-222.
The Nature of Mind and Other Essays.David Malet Armstrong - 1980 - Ithaca, N.Y.: University of Queensland Press.
Knowing What it is Like 'in DM Rosenthal'.D. K. Lewis - 1991 - In David M. Rosenthal (ed.), The Nature of Mind. Oxford University Press.

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